This has always been the case for everything. People can only maintain priority 1 outrage about something for a limited time until the next priority 1 outrage arises. That's why corporations are willing to pour such huge resources into buying the message/politicians - they know it's never a long-haul thing. That advertisement for Canva where the squirrel says "I'm the thing!" - only to be usurped by a pigeon playing the harmonica - is EXACTLY how public attention works.

Noble, and will never happen; power is maintained through information asymmetry. The panopticon is m-1 and will never be m-m.

There is a big difference between citizens in public places filming the activities of law enforcement vs. citizens bringing cameras into activities in non-public spaces. Out on the street? Film away. In my house, a restaurant, a business? Cameras down.

Well, that's very nice and technically correct - the best kind of correct. The problem is, it isn't operationally correct. In-building surveillance data is pooled and shared - ALWAYS at the corporate level (think: facial recognition banlists for bad customers, casino bans, alcohol bans etc) and frequently shared with other parties as well (for example, Ring cameras shared with law enforcement as a "virtual neighborhood watch" program. I am sorry to say that I am the inventor on a US patent for that (US 10,257,469, NEIGHBORHOOD CAMERA LINKING, filed in 2016). And in the case of government-operated anti-crime and/or traffic monitoring cameras (see: the UK or China for hellish examples thereof) there is a sea of centrally owned cameras pervading urban areas.

Practically speaking, there is no difference between a singular camera that follows you down the street, versus a network of cameras that has coverage almost everywhere you go. In either case someone can construct a seamless continuous recording of what you do over any desired span of time. And if you are in a public place there is no possible expectation of privacy, at least in the US.

I went to (prim/sec) school from 1979-1990 in Australia and, although I was 16, my peers were mostly 17-18 in 1990, meaning I had about 6-7 years (Grade 6 or maybe Form 1 through Form 6 / HSC, though it was renamed Year 12 / VCE somewhere in 1989ish) in the company of teenagers. Mostly, I have to say, rich teenagers, because of the schools I attended. (Narrator: I was not rich). Smoking was a surreptitious behind-the-levee-bank kind of activity, not frequent and not in the open. A kid smelling of smoke would have been noticed immediately. Now, the _TEACHERS_ on the other hand... :)

This is nothing to do with parenting, it's simple Narcissism 101. People want everything in the universe to operate on their terms. Hence: "Buying a motorcycle for my 6yo" is fine because *I* did it. "Finding that someone else put a book in the library that I think I would disapprove of if I visited libraries, or could read" is completely different because someone else did it. And I'm not even joking when I say all this, though I use hyperbolic language.

It's probably not much more expensive to hire 100 microinfluencers as to keep a single x100 influencer. And it has huge advantages - the top two being: 1. if one of your microinfluencers turns out to be a Nazi or something, you can cut ties instantly without a huge amount of hoopla and without affecting the rest of your marketing campaign, and 2. 100lbs of sand will fill more cracks than a single 100lb rock. If you have 100 different influencers with somewhat different circles you'll capture a larger audience. Influencer A might appeal to outdoorsy types, influencer B might capture the matcha latte market, influencer C might base their campaign around fart jokes - and thus, you reach something more than the audience reachable by a single averaged mega-influencer.

This is principally because it was recognized that computers are no longer ten-year purchases (typical service life for a mainframe), they are commodity items that rapidly become obsolete. You don't depreciate pencils; personal computers aren't that far removed.

Macs also require activation. Reformat the drive and you can't even install the OS without the computer phoning the mothership. This is tied into the fact that Apple offers a business service that semi-permanently links a machine to your company's MDM. Reformat it and it automatically reinstalls the company's management profile. This link is burned in at purchase time (and cannot be set up post-purchase) - it's really a database entry back at Apple that says "oi, this serial number isn't for general consumers, it belongs to ${MIGHTYCORP}" during that mothership ping. Apple allows the corp to divest the Mac with a onetime, irreversible "drop this machine from our list of managed devices" process.

Not even the craziest nuclear states have implemented a nuclear device that fails unsafe. In all cases, a chain of all-in-agreement affirmative steps must be taken to arm, target and detonate a nuclear device. If someone implemented the scenario you describe, they have just handed a free nuclear weapon to anyone who can cause a comms jam. $BADACTOR can hold everyone to ransom by holding the comms offline and demanding a payout (or a release of prisoners, or whatever they want).

The problem with all of this is that it's too much thinking. All or any of it is too much thinking. An ICE vehicle can be topped off at any time without any thinking. An ICE vehicle can be run dry [generally] and the worst effect will be having to call AAA to bring you a gallon of gas. An ICE vehicle can be left in the sun and the [generally] worst effect will be that the level in the tank drops a bit [rarely does enough evap occur to significantly change the fuel component ratios]. An [non-carbureted] ICE vehicle can be left in the ice and snow and the [generally] worst effect will be that you have to chip it out before driving away. The mere fact that people talk about all these techniques for "managing" battery charging is a cognitive load that a) the average person doesn't want to take on, b) has sufficient conflicting and special-case rules that it's a significant effort to undertake it correctly, but c) most important of all it creates a general impression that EVs require special care and constant stroking to avoid range anxiety becoming worse the longer the vehicle is operated.

This is one of those cases where if everyone just STFU'd about the issue, it would largely go away; the most efficient method to manage the underlying technology is to rely on the manufacturers to improve their BMS's and not try to second-guess them. The same way few people second-guess their automatic transmission cars by always running them in manual shift mode. As a sidebar it's also one of those very few cases where a "smart" software-assisted system would be truly helpful - a system that knows I'm at a gas station and currently navigating to a very distant destination knows I want to fast-charge as much as possible while I'm inside the Buc-ee's buying a brisket sandwich. It can make the battery life vs. trip convenience tradeoff for me.

I'm doing it wrong. I wouldn't buy at those prices, and I've never had an auction bid up to those prices. Maybe some people with the cojones to list at Buy It Now of that price get some non-collector who wants it NOW to pay it... I guess.

Several hundred dollars? Let me know where you're seeing people paying several hundred dollars for a bare, working C64. If you pay $100 for such an article, you are overpaying (This comment won't age well due to market volatility but it is true today in June 2026 in the United States). Putting together a minimal real C64 system for the purpose of playing games/demos/SIDfiles and/or tinkering with BASIC should set you back about $75 for the computer itself, about $60 (shipped) for either a Kung Fu Flash 2 card or a combo SD2IEC/fastloader cartridge, about $10 for a joystick and about $15 for a composite to HDMI adapter. Unless you are archiving unique disks from a personal collection, there is truly no real reason to buy a disk drive these days. Plus a third party PSU, the gold standard being Keelog, but cheaper options exist - allow $70 for this. Or you can get essentially the same experience by purchasing a Raspberry Pi 3B and associated case, etc, for around $100 total, some assembly required.

The C64 Ultimate isn't a terrible product, but it is only a minor aspect of this fiasco. The deplorable part is the influencer pollution. Who knew enshittification could encompass a brand as well as a product.

The equivalency stems from the fact that it is shanzai junk shilled to a target audience of "people who define themselves in terms of the social media they consume".